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New platform simplifies OpenStack cloud networking

Updated on October 26, 2015By Ian Barker Comments Off on New platform simplifies OpenStack cloud networking

OpenStack is a popular open source tool for creating public and private clouds and is used by big companies around the world.

To make running OpenStack systems easier, open source network specialist Akanda is launching a new version of its Astara platform that radically simplifies the complexity and scale of implementations.

“Astara’s first release as an official OpenStack project is an exciting one for OpenStack operators,” says Henrik Rosendahl, CEO, Akanda. “The goal of Astara is to make Networking and DevOps’ lives easier. With tremendous community support and momentum for the platform throughout its first year, Astara is the answer for massively simplified OpenStack networking stack that can replace traditional — and expensive — single vendor lock-in”.

The latest Astara release is compatible with the latest ‘Liberty’ OpenStack release and includes a new load balancer driver which allows OpenStack operators to configure the platform to load and manage only the resources they choose. Neutron virtual network resources are now much more quickly provisioned onto appliance VMs via a new service that manages pools of hot-standby appliance VMs.

The new release also offers integration and support for Dynamic Lightweight Network Virtualization which gives OpenStack operators a complete, OpenStack-ready stack. There are active high availability and scaling improvements, plus syncing to Liberty’s global requirements, ensuring smooth installation into system namespaces shared by other OpenStack projects. For clouds running OpenStack Kilo or Juno releases the new Astara release can be completely back ported.

More information about the latest release is available on the Akanda blog.